The old man nodded slowly.
"It is a girl—no?"
The young man laughed again, without mirth.
"Which of them?" and Bryton made a gesture toward a group of dark faces across the plaza. "There is pretty Lizetta, Teresa; and if one wants the other sort, there is Chola Martina staring at us both under her mantilla."
"It is you she stares at. The Lieutenant danced with her last night. He is just off the ranges, so she is to-day crazy over the Americanos. No—it is not any of such girls you are for."
"I reckon not," agreed the young fellow. "I think it is just the atmosphere, and perhaps the old monastery. The pictures of Mexican towns paint themselves on the memory and stay there. Were you ever in Old Mexico, Don Juan?"
"Not I; never have I been a travelled man. But you—?"
"I was down there a year ago," answered Bryton, looking hard at the hills. "I found a town in a valley like this,—there were just the same sort of 'dobes, and the same sort of big church walls,—only it was a nuns' cloister, instead of a deserted monastery."
"And—?"
"I'll never go back, but—I'll never forget it! That old broken wall, and Moorish chimney, and the doves—they all belong to the same sort of picture. I come here to sit and moon over them once in a while, that's all!"